her comprehenfivenefs of policy, main fubftance of all the forge and her vigour of refolution.ries, to have been changed and . But I deteft her habits of fwear altered in a moft wonderful man. ner. Throgmorton, who had re'ceived an account of the first letters from the very formers of them, could not poffibly have recognized them again in the laft. Like the fhip of Athens, or the ftockings of Sir John Cutler, they had fcarcely one particle of their original materials left be'hind. Yet, like thofe ftockings and that fhip, they pretended to be ftill the fame; and what was 'infinitely more, they pretended ing, her habits of hypocrify, her ⚫ rancorous jealoufy, and her murderous malignity. Elizabeth indeed appears in her worft light, while fhe is feen in her tranfac. tions with Mary. On this worst part of her history have I been obliged to dwell. Nor fhould I have done juftice to an injured queen, if I had not stated this • part of the hiftory, in its full glare of enormity, before the eye. The generality of mankind are undignified enough into be the undarned, the unre their own spirit to pay their re- paired fame from the very bea fpect to understanding at the exginning. pence of morality; to ennoble perfons who are only great from their powers, their fituations, and their fuccefs; and to fink from view the profligacy with which thefe powers were exerted, thefe ⚫ fituations were improved, and this fuccefs was infured. But let not fuch as afpire to lead the opinions of the public, be content to practise the vice of the vulgar. The interefts of virtue 'fhould be the object of every writer; and one fingle grain of virtue, it should be for ever confidered, is worth more in the eftimate of reafon and of God, than all the mafs of intellect, that is diffufed through the uni• verfe. The letters of Throgmorton's days I have shown to be merely ideal at the time, though they were realized afterwards. But a new fet was foon form.ed upon a new principle. Even this was fuperfeded afterwards. A new principle again took poffeffion of the mind; and a new fet again appeared upon the ftage. The ' murder was the object of the first the adultery had no fhare in it. The adultery and the murder became joint objects of the fecond. The murder was ftill principal, but the adultery showed itself of nearly equal magnitude with it. And at last, in the third, the adultery became principal, and the murder was only hint But having, with the juft feed at. verity of truth, I truft, laid open the behaviour of Elizabeth and • Murray during the conferences in England; I then proceeded to 'Both the fecond and the third I have alfo fhown to have under. gone many alterations of another nature. They appeared fubfcrib. 'fhow the grounds and causes ofed by Mary on the 4th of Decem all this, in the wretched ftate of the forgeries themselves. I have ⚫ shown the letters peculiarly, that ber 1567. They appeared not fubfcribed on the 15th-29th of the fame month. They were fu'perfcribed perfcribed to Bothwell originally; yet they appeared not fuperfcribed afterwards. They were all dated both in time and place, before and during their appearance at York, but not after it. There were alfo ten in number with the parliament of Scotland; fix at York; five at Westminster on the 8th of December, eight af terwards, ten on the 7th December, and actually eighteen in the months of December and January 1589, and on the 22d Janu" ary 1571. they published eight in French, they publifhed eight alfo in Scotch, and both pretending equally to be Mary's writing. All these variations fufficiently vindicate the conduct of Elizabeth and of Murray, for the policy, though not for the probity of it; in the tricks and ftratagems, in the frauds and evafions, which we have seen this couple of political jugglers exhibiting before. They both knew of the forgery. They both knew of thofe ftriking 'fignatures of it. They both knew Nor is this all. The evidence particularly of the changes and against Mary was merely the let- re-changes in the language of the ters at first. For nearly fifteen • letters. And their knowledge months from the afferted feizure will combine with their conduct, of Mary's casket, it had disclosed I fear, to fpeak in a bolder lannothing but letters against her.guage against them both, than any But, being properly put to the torture, it gave up twelve fonnets, und two contracts of marriage, to • impeach her reputation. And then thefe pretended to have been eequally found with the letters, at • firft. ' which I have used. But whatever is the fate of thefe, the innocence of Mary must now be admitted by all, I think. The witneffes against her have been tried in the examination of the letters, fonnets, and contracts. One fingle variation in their testimony must have been fatal to the whole; but I have found many. But what is most astonishing, amid all thefe fucceffive scenes • of aftonishment, is the change of the language in the letters. They appeared as Scotch, before the council and the parliament of Scotland, in December 1567. Yet Murray afferted them to be in French, by a meffage to Eliza. beth in June following. But they ftill appeared in Scotch to the commiffioners at York, in the enfuingful blaze, I apprehend, as lays ⚫ month of October. And after all, they re-appeared in French, to the very fame commiffioners, only a few weeks afterward at Westmin. • fter. What is even more furprifing, they appeared fome of them in French and fome in Scotch; Each of thefe, in my opinion, forms a ftrong and lively ray of light to difclofe the forgery to every eye. The last of them, I think, forms a ray exceedingly lively and ftrong. And all together they unite into fuch a power " open the whole forgery from end to end; as enables the molt weak-eyed to fee, and compels the moft incredulous to believe." Having in the firft volume thus gone through the external evidence, the author proceeds in the fecond to the the examination of the internal evidence in proof of the forgery of the letters, contracts, and fonnets, and gives us an exact copy of each, in the refpective languages in which they were originally published. The letters alone, in Scotch, Latin, and French, with the different notes and criticisms upon them, take up the whole of the fecond volume. To attempt to follow our author through this minute and critical inveftigation, would lead us far beyond the bounds prefcribed to us on thefe occafions, and we must therefore content ourselves with re. marking in general, that thefe obfervations coinciding fo well as they evidently do with fo many of the circumstantial proofs adduced in the first volume, tend exceedingly to explain and develope the forgery, and to give an additional stability to what indeed feems able, if it were neceffary, to fupport itfelf, without this new acceffion of ftrength. "It has been," fays our author, "a tiresome employ to read, trans. "cribe, and comment upon such "a mafs of impertinence and dull❝ nefs :" — and it requires also, we must confefs, not a small share of patience, and a confiderable degree of zeal in the caufe, to follow our author with any kind of exactnefs through the whole of "this "tiresome employment." This however, we believe, will in great meafure be made up to the attentive reader, by the many new lights it throws on fome of the most impor. tant circumstances of thefe times; and the manner in which the enquiry has been profecuted, certainly reflects very great honour on Mr. Whitaker's industry and penetration. In the beginning of the third volume, the Jonnets are brought before us; and as the letters were the production of Lethington, so it appears almoft equally certain that the fonnets owe their existence to the famous Buchanan. That they were originally written in French, there feems to be no doubt ; and fince they are evidently proved not to have been Mary's, and it does not appear that there was any one man among the ufurpers qualified for poetical compofition, and capa◄ ble of undertaking it in the French language, the honour and the dif grace attending thefe fonnets, muft equally belong to him alone. It may not be uninterefting to fome of our readers to form their own judgment of these compofitions, by an examination of a few of the firft ftanzas of the first fonnet, which we fhall lay before them in French and in English, and which we have taken as they occured to us; without any particular reafon for the selection. 1. "O Dieux, ayez de moy compaffion, "Et m'enfeignez quelle preuve certaine "Je puis donner, qui ne luy semble vaine, "De mon amour et ferme affection. "Las! n'eft-il pas ja en poffeffion "Du corps, du cœur, qui ne refufe peine, "Ny defhonneur en la vie incertaine, "Offence de parens, ni pire amiction ? "Pour lui tous mes amis j'estime moins "que rien, Et de mes ennemis je veux esperer bien. "J'ay hazardé pour luy et nom et con fcience; "Je veux pour luy au monde renoncer, "Je veux mou ir pour le faire avancer : “Que reste plus pour prouver ma constance? II. "Entre "In his hands, and in his power, "I put my fone, my honour, and my life, "Schortly, I fall give of my trueth fic prufe, "That he fall knaw my conftancie without " fictioun, "Not be my weiping, or fenzeit obedience, "As uther have done, bot be uther expe "rience, &c. &c. &c." The contracts are next examined with the fame care, and in the fame have been defcribed to be; manner as the letters and fonnets and the author's obfervation resulting from the whole is, "that as we "have feen the letters contradict"ing each other, and the fonnets "contradicting the letters, we now "fee the letters contradicted alfo "by the contracts. The three grand elements of the forgery are "thus in a perpetual ftate of hoftility between themfelves, cach "laying open the falfhood of the "other, and all uniting to prove "the forgery of all.” The difcuffion of a very important point; viz. the murder of lord Darnley, clofes this interefting work. Of this fingular incident (as we are told) the public "has never had 66 any thing but a confufed and in"diftinct idea." And our author undertakes to give it a clear one, "becaufe the undertaking will ter"minate," he fays, "in a fill "fuller, a fill ftronger, and a fill more pointed vindication of Queen "Mary." 66 Buchanan's confeffions concern "My countrie, my fubjectis, my faule, all ing the murder, published at the "fubdewit end of his Detection, &c. come first under confideration, and feem in. deed clearly to be all fpurious. Acontradiction in the evidence of one mong many other things, a palpable William Powrie is too ftriking to be paffed over, On the 23d of June this man fwears that he and Patrick Wilfon took "ane carriage of twa "maths "utheris twa quhilks had cloakes "about yair faces."-In the latter, quhan the deponar and Pat Will "maills and ane tronk, and ye "with the laft convoy, and laid "the fame down, Robert Ormes. toun came forth and faid, &c."And at the fame time that the deponar and Pat Pat Wilfon laid "down the laft cariage at the faid "Frier gait, the E. Bothwell (the lower room of Bothwell's lodg-fon come to the Frier zet (gate) ings at Holyrood house) "quilks "the deponar and the faid Pat put on and chargit upon twa horfes of my lordis, the ane being his fown "(awn) borje-and yet on the 3d of July re-fwears-" yat the SC carage of the tronk and mail, " contenit in his former depofi- came unto yame utwith (without) ❝tioun, were carried by him and "the Frier zet, accompany it with "Pat Wilfone," not upon two "three more quhilks had yare horfes of my lord's, and one of them "cloaks and mulis upon yair feet. his own, but upon one gray horfs "And to notice only one more yat pertained to Herman, page to "contradiction, the first part of "" my lord at twa fundry times."- "the first depofition afferted him "But Powrie confirmed his ac- " and Wilfon to have taken twa "" count of the 23d June by this "mails and ane tronk in one load, remembered incident, that " and on an leidderin mail" in "their return back out of the yard "another; but in the fucceeding "6 at Black Friars to the gate, the parts the twa mails are for"twa borfes (which they had left gotten, the faids twa charges "there, while they carried in the "being fhrunk into the faid maill "powder) war away, and they" and tronk; and yet though the "were obliged to go back to Holy- "fecond depofition continues at "rood houfe without them.. And "firft to fpeak of the tronk and "he corroborated his account of "maill, it foon changes its tone, "July 3d by another incident of a "and makes up for what it has contrary nature, and yet equally "taken away, by adding ane toome "remembered; which was, "6 With yat at "pulder barrel to the whole. "the LAST horfe cariage he bare up "fuch a negligent industry have ane toome (empty) pulder barrel" thefe confeffions been put "to the fame place yai carriet the "gether, that one man, fpeaking "pulder, and yat he wift not how 66 at the distance of only ten days; "fpeaking of a general and a very "memorable fact, which happened "only four or five months before; " and speaking of circumftances, "which he must have remembered 66 as well as he remembered his own prefence at the whole, violently "and repeatedly gives himself the ❝lye. ་་ nor be quhome, the fame came in "the erle Bothwel's ludging in the "Abby." Such grofs contradic"tions are there in this one man's "depofitions. But there are still 66 more. In the former, when he came to the gate of the Black "Friars, he and Wilfon were met by the erle Bothwell, accompa"nit with Robert Ormestoun and to We could not avoid mentioning "Paris, called French Paris, and at full length thofe particulars, be caufe, |